S. HRG. 108–795 Senate Hearings Before the Committee on Appropriations Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Fiscal Year 2005 108th CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION H.R. 4568/S. 2804 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NONDEPARTMENTAL WITNESSES Interior Appropriations, 2005 (H.R. 4568/S. 2804) S. HRG. 108–795 DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 HEARINGS BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 4568/S. 2804 AN ACT MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE IN- TERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2005, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES Department of Agriculture Department of Energy Department of Health and Human Services Department of the Interior Nondepartmental Witnesses Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 92–152 PDF WASHINGTON : 2005 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky TOM HARKIN, Iowa CONRAD BURNS, Montana BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HARRY REID, Nevada JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire HERB KOHL, Wisconsin ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah PATTY MURRAY, Washington BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota LARRY CRAIG, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois MIKE DEWINE, Ohio TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JAMES W. MORHARD, Staff Director LISA SUTHERLAND, Deputy Staff Director TERRENCE E. SAUVAIN, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES CONRAD BURNS, Montana, Chairman TED STEVENS, Alaska BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire HARRY REID, Nevada BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland Professional Staff BRUCE EVANS GINNY JAMES LEIF FONNESBECK RYAN THOMAS PETER KIEFHABER (Minority) BROOKE THOMAS (Minority) Administrative Support LARISSA SOMMER (II) CONTENTS THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2004 Page Department of Energy: Office of the Secretary ..................................................... 1 THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2004 Department of Agriculture: Forest Service ............................................................ 75 THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2004 Department of the Interior: Office of the Secretary ............................................. 115 THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2004 Department of Health and Human Services: Indian Health Service .................. 189 Nondepartmental witnesses .................................................................................... 225 (III) DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RE- LATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2004 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 9:32 a.m., in room SD–124, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Conrad Burns (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Burns, Stevens, Bennett, Dorgan, Byrd, Leahy, Reid. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY STATEMENT OF HON. SPENCER ABRAHAM, SECRETARY OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD BURNS Senator BURNS. We will call the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior to order. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Secretary ABRAHAM. Good to be with you. Senator BURNS. Appreciate that. Secretary ABRAHAM. Thank you. Senator BURNS. We are glad to have you here to discuss the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget request from the Department of Energy. Due to the tortured evolution of jurisdictions in Congress, your Department is relegated to ‘‘related Agency’’ status in our sub- committee. The Interior Department gets its name on the bill, but we rarely ever hear of the Energy aspect of this. We appreciate that you are here for the good or the bad, but nonetheless we know that what you do at the Department of Energy is important to the country, and in a lot of ways it is related for the simple reason that Interior and Energy should be working together. They support de- velopment of technologies that can slow our growing dependence on foreign oil. Your programs also support the development of tech- nologies that promote the more efficient use of all forms of energy, which enables our economy to grow without sacrificing environ- mental quality. The Department of Energy’s budget, under this subcommittee, is roughly $1.7 billion. Direct comparisons with current funding levels is a bit complicated due to the use of revisions, deferrals, and ad- vance appropriations, but generally speaking, your budget request (1) 2 reflects a zero sum situation. A handful of administrative priorities, such as FutureGen and weatherization, were given large increases. These increases are paid for by steep reductions in a range of ongo- ing R&D programs such as oil and gas research, industrial tech- nology, distributed generation, and coal fuels. As a general matter, Mr. Secretary, I think it is appropriate that the budget posture, given the current fiscal climate, the budget committee will be going into the mark-up session today, so it is clear that what you have recommended here and what has been recommended to us up in budget will be dealt with. With that in mind, it is clear in our discussions that we need to center around tradeoffs as opposed to where the next additional Federal dollar should go, I do not foresee that there will be any ad- ditional Federal dollars for any programs coming up. This is going to be a tough budget year. We have invited you here today to ex- plain some of those priorities you’ve set within your budget re- quests. If we go along with the reductions that you propose in oil and gas R&D or distributed generation research, what do we lose? If we go along with the major investments you propose in FutureGen, carbon sequestration, and weatherization, then what do we get? We might not necessarily agree on all of the answers but by and large I am sure we will have an informative discussion before it is all over. PREPARED STATEMENT So again, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for coming this morning. We appreciate your time; we know that you are busy at this time of the year. [The statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD BURNS Welcome Mr. Secretary. We’re glad to have you here to discuss the President’s fis- cal year 2005 budget request for the Department of Energy. Due to the tortured evolution of jurisdictions in Congress, your department is rel- egated to ‘‘Related Agency’’ status in our subcommittee nomenclature. The Interior department gets its name on the bill (along with most of the attention—good and bad), while your programs tend to get somewhat less scrutiny. But there is no question in my mind that the DOE programs under this sub- committee’s jurisdiction support critical national goals. They support development of technologies that can slow our growing dependence on foreign oil—something that is essential to our national security. And down the road those technologies may help free us from our dependence on oil imports once and for all. Your programs also support development of technologies that promote the more efficient use of all forms of energy; enabling our economy to grow without sacrificing environmental quality. The President’s fiscal year 2005 budget request proposes roughly $1.7 billion for DOE programs under our jurisdiction. Making direct comparisons with current funding levels is a bit complicated due to the use of rescissions, deferrals, and advance appropriations. But generally speak- ing, your budget request reflects a ‘‘zero sum’’ situation. A handful of Administration priorities such as FutureGen and Weatherization are given large increases. These increases are paid for by steep reductions in a range of ongoing R&D programs, such as Oil and Gas research, Industrial Technologies, Distributed Generation, and Coal Fuels. As a general matter, Mr. Secretary, I think that is an appropriate budget posture given the current fiscal climate. In just a few minutes the Senate Budget Committee is going to begin to mark up this year’s budget resolution, and it is clear that it 3 will recommend less discretionary spending than contemplated in the President’s re- quest, not more. So with that in mind it is clear our discussions need to center around tradeoffs, as opposed to where the next additional Federal dollar should go. I don’t foresee there will be any additional Federal dollars for these programs. We have invited you here today to explain to us the priorities you’ve set within your budget request. If we go along with the reductions you propose in Oil and Gas R&D, or Distributed Generation research, what do we lose? If we go along with the major investments you propose in FutureGen, carbon sequestration and Weatheriza- tion, what do we get? I’m not sure we’ll necessarily agree on all the answers by lunch, but am sure we’ll have an informative discussion. Again, Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming today. I know you have a number of different Congressional committees to which you must answer, and we appreciate your time. Senator BURNS. Welcome Senator Dorgan, my co-chair on this committee, I look forward to your statement. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BYRON L. DORGAN Senator DORGAN. Senator Burns, thank you very much and Mr.